Chapter 7. Curses

Chapter 7. Curses

Curses - The Silly Fit

This chapter presents a cautionary tale of an excellent guitar fitted with inappropriate strings. It underscores the importance of understanding string properties and the potential pitfalls of relying on generalist guitar shops for string advice.

Here is an example of what I call the “Silly Fit.” It is a case where an excellent guitar was fitted with inappropriate strings, even though they were a reputable string brand. I cannot blame the makers for this problem, but the story is worth telling.

Some years ago, I developed a mildly obsessive interest in a particular high-end guitar model in the Esteve range. Made in the smaller Esteve workshop supervised by Manuel Adalid, this was a model designated the Esteve GR 12, priced at $A3,500-$4,000.

The appealing features of this guitar to me were its combination of a cedar top with Pau Ferro back and sides, its nitro lacquered finish, which made for better tone than standard polyurethane lacquer, and its perforated headstock, reminding me of a Deiter Hopf guitar, which I would never be able to afford (sigh!).

Now, like many other players, I was purchasing this guitar at a distance. It was only available from a generalist guitar shop in New South Wales, but I had played the same model with a spruce top, so I was confident about its quality. The transaction went through after discussion with the sales guy by phone and email.

But on its arrival, I was surprised to find that the guitar had been fitted with new Savarez “red card” strings (i.e., Normal tension), which are rectified nylon, one of my great bêtes noires on modern classical guitars - scratchy on the left hand and lacking projection. The salesman explained that he had taken the liberty of changing the original strings, but he did not know the brand or tension of the original strings, except that the ends of the original trebles were a red colour. The only red-colored strings he had in stock were these Savarez Red card strings!

It is the misfortune of classical guitarists that generalist guitar shops will rarely have staff highly knowledgeable about nylon-string guitars or the nuances of string options, or adequate string options in stock. For generations, it seems that slapping on Savarez Red card strings to every classical guitar that comes into the shop has been a kind of “one-size fits all” concept among steel string-focused guitar techs and salespeople alike. I had had experience of this “Red Card syndrome” before with other guitars and guitar techs.

Don’t get me wrong, rectified nylon strings are suitable for some players and guitars, especially when they are used for historical instruments where they can impart the required mellowness. Their texture is particularly good for players who don’t use nails. But the fact is that they have less tension and projection than unrectified nylon strings.

Well, what could I do? First, I shot off an email to the Esteve workshop in Spain asking what strings had been fitted to this model. With relatively high-end models, I give some respect to the makers for their string choices. The answer came back that the original strings were Savarez Alliance (i.e., Carbon normal tension). This made sense because these carbon strings, even though classified as “normal tension,” have a higher actual tension than Savarez Red card rectified nylon trebles: that is, the fluorocarbon is a denser material and puts more pressure on the guitar top to bring out tone and volume.

As soon as I changed over to these recommended strings, the tension was better under my fingers, and the guitar started to sing. BUT, this was not the end of the story. Now, the combination of the cedar top with Pau Ferro produced a bigger volume with less mellowness than one would experience with its customary combination with solid Indian rosewood back and sides. That was fine with me.

But the hardness of that tone resonating through the Pau Ferro was a little harsh and overpowering to my ears. I wanted to harness that power but soften it just a little. Thanks to previous experiences in tweaking guitars with different strings, I finally found that the ideal match with this guitar were my faithful Luthier mid-high tension nylon strings (Luthier Concert Silver) which gave enough resistance under the fingers and enough tension and tonal thickness to mediate the distinctive timbre produced by the Pau Ferro.

I was finally satisfied that this guitar would now sing. The rest was up to my technique and technical ability.

Curses - The Dodgy Fit

This section exposes questionable practices related to string choices. It criticizes using prestigious string brands on variable quality guitars as a marketing tactic and discusses how string buzz can reveal flaws in both mass-produced and higher-end guitars.

I use this label to cover cases where:

1. Variable quality factory-made guitars are fitted with well-known prestige brand strings as a selling point.

2. Problematic string response can expose issues with higher-priced guitars.

 Category 1

This is most obvious in the case of Savarez strings, which are featured on many mass-produced guitars sold by guitar dealers. I’m talking about brands like Cordoba, Katoh, and others. Some of these can be very nice for the price, but not always.

I have visited guitar shops displaying these guitars and their Savarez tags, only to play them and be greeted by string rattles - the first sign of a dodgy guitar, or at least a guitar that has not been given prior attention by the sales staff. Maybe the rattles were caused by poor neck adjustment; after all, most of these guitar brands are made with adjustable truss rods. But who knows? The frets may be poor and unevenly fitted, etc.

These are cases where the adage “the strings are better than the guitar” may well apply. I can only suspect that the makers and the sellers have calculated market and price point and assume that ease-of-playing is the primary concern of the buyers who are attracted to these brands of classical guitars, that somehow string rattle/buzz is not a primary concern for buyers.

 Category 2

String buzz can also be detected in higher-end guitars, especially on the D bass string, which has a higher oscillation than the other bass strings. This has been a bugbear of mine with several guitars I have encountered, and at least one that I have owned.

Perhaps I’m fussier than other players, but when a bass string buzzes under my thumb or plucked with a finger, I get very cranky. I purchased a fairly high-end Spanish spruce top guitar ($3,800) with a persistent D string buzz between the second and fourth frets. I thought this could be remedied by replacing the string with a higher tension D string, which I did. However, the consequence was that the higher tension string had less tone and also became harder to play.

I took it back to the shop, and the owner was decent enough to send the guitar to a luthier to have the frets dressed. However, this did not solve the problem. So finally, the only solution was to part with this guitar, and the store owner allowed me to exchange it for a nice Ramirez 150 Anos model, which was very nice, but not spruce.

On another occasion, when I was living in Colombia, I met the leading luthier of classical guitars in that country, a world-renowned craftsman who had made guitars for the virtuoso Gentil Montana (a protégé of Alirio Diaz). I sat in his daughter’s home (she is also a luthier) in Bogota and played several wonderful guitars.

He explained that these were several years old because he normally made by order for customers. The only problem was that the bass strings were rattling, and I was not going to purchase an expensive guitar in that state. He and his daughter commented that the strings were old, and everything would be fine when they were changed. The complication was that they did not have any strings available.

I had brought some strings to Colombia (Luthier and Savarez), but they were in my apartment. Unfortunately, they were not happy with me trying out these strings on the guitars before I made a purchase. With previous dismal experiences of good guitars with buzzing strings in my mind, I reluctantly declined to buy.

Curses - The Shop Fit

This section critiques the practice of some high-end guitar sellers who restring all their guitars with a single brand and tension, regardless of individual instrument characteristics. It argues that this approach disregards the unique tonal qualities of each guitar.

The “shop fit” refers to the policy of a new-and-used high-end guitar selling business that re-strings all guitars coming into the shop with a single brand of strings at a single tension. To me, this is a practice which is very dubious because it takes no account of the differences between guitars. It is distinct from the practice of guitar-making workshops like Alhambra and Paulino Bernabe, who fit single brands and tensions to their guitars because their guitars are literally built for these specific strings.

This shop-fit policy has been adopted by Siccas Guitars, based in Karlsruhe, Germany, the European equivalent to the U.S.-based Guitar Salon International. Siccas fits all its guitars with Knobloch EDC 43.0 (Erithacus CX Carbon), which is a mid-high tension set with carbon trebles. It fits these strings to guitars regardless of whether they are a 1982 Masaru Kohn concert guitar, a 2024 Manuel Adalid Homenage double top, or a 1963 fan-braced Daniel Friederich.

I can only imagine that this policy is some strange attempt to “level the playing field” of all the guitars that Siccas sells and/or the result of a mutually beneficial business deal with Knobloch strings for publicity purposes. In any case, regardless of the slick YouTube reviews of their guitars and the equally impressive sound recordings, I have little faith that these Knobloch strings are uniformly the best for each of the various guitars sold.